


Minds Touched by Madness

by WellTemperedClavier



Category: Cthulhu Mythos - H. P. Lovecraft, Daria (Cartoon)
Genre: Crossover, Friendship, Gen, Horror, Lovecraftian, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-12
Updated: 2015-05-12
Packaged: 2018-03-30 05:10:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 9
Words: 17,707
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3924091
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WellTemperedClavier/pseuds/WellTemperedClavier
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What begins as a simple art contest spirals into a nightmarish encounter with forces older than time itself.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Daria wondered how many more times she’d walk up the familiar stairs to Jane‘s room. Only a month remained before college and the myriad disappointments it was sure to bring. _A needless anxiety_ , she reflected, the uneven wooden steps creaking under her thick boots. _It’s not as if we won’t both be coming back._  

Then again, Jane might not. A lot of probably depended on whether or not Trent stayed, and who could really say when it came to him?

Daria paused at the head of the stairs and wiped her brow, the old house torrid in the summer heat. No question that the damn place needed some new insulation. Thoughts of the greasy, spice-scented air of the Pizza King—and more importantly, its air conditioning—made a welcome intrusion.

Seeing Jane‘s door closed, Daria knocked.

“Hey.”

Not getting a response, she tried again. Leaning closer to the door, she listened for any signs of movement. Sleeping, maybe?

“I’m not interrupting anything, am I?”

Still nothing. An odd sense of worry began gnawing at her, exacerbated by the sweltering air.

_She probably has heat stroke, at this rate._

She opened the door just a crack. Relief washed over her when she saw a pajama-clad Jane busy at work, her paintbrush cutting frenetic strokes across the canvas. A little abashed at her earlier concern, Daria stepped in, not quite prepared for the staggering miasma: a mix of sweat, trapped summer heat, and paint fumes.

Daria blinked; she’d long ago ceased to notice the smell of paint in the Lane house but it never before hit her with so much strength, almost like getting doused with a bucket of the stuff. Already woozy, she found the source of the problem in the closed window.

“Hey,” she said.

“Oh, hey, Daria,” Jane replied, her tone distracted.

“Um, are you okay?”

She made no reply, lowering her brush to make furious dabs into a palette of bruised and muddy colors. Daria narrowed her eyes and took matters into her own hands. With swift steps she marched across the room, unlatched the window, and threw it open to humid summer air that still felt a relief in the dank little room.

Daria stuck her head outside for a moment and took in some deep breaths. Going back inside, she turned to see Jane blinking, as if not quite sure what had happened.

“Oh! Thanks. I guess I got kind of distracted," Jane said.

“You probably shouldn’t have both the door and the window closed when you do this. Paint fumes can do some very strange things to the mind."

“Hey, plenty of great artists had psychoactive inspiration."

“Said psychoactive inspiration usually wasn’t the medium.”

“It’s more efficient this way,” Jane chirped. “Wow, what time is it? I really did get pretty wrapped up in what I was doing.”

“I’ll say.”

Daria took a closer look at the canvas. An expressionistic hellscape already consumed most of the surface. Distorted figures—equal parts Dix and late-period Goya—twisted in the shadows of looming monoliths done in a slightly more realistic style. The dizziness from the fumes only enhanced the otherworldly visuals and Daria actually had to look away after a short while.

“So it’s Disneyland, right?” The joke fell flat on Daria's tongue, but something about the painting demanded that she lighten the mood with some snark.

“If Disneyland looked like that I’d be interested in going. Actually, I dreamt this up all on my own. Literally, I’ve been seeing it in my sleep!” Jane said, her voice carrying an almost exultant tone.

“How long have you been shut in here with these paint fumes, again?”

“I usually don’t remember my dreams, but these stuck with me. I woke up and just started.”

Only then did Daria notice the weariness in Jane‘s eyes. Crookedness distorted her bobbed hair, and her posture looked just a bit less contorted than the luckless figures she painted. Energy seemed to pour out from her, more akin to the last feverish burst before a collapse than a sign of any real vitality.

“There’s also this local artist showcase next week. What you’re seeing here is my entry. It’s like my dreams just perfectly lined up with reality," Jane said.

“If those are what your dreams look like, I can’t wait.”

Daria glanced at the nearly finished painting, still feeling a bit lightheaded. The characters were unmistakably Jane‘s though the style seemed different in ways she couldn’t quite decipher.

“Are you mixing styles?” Daria asked, searching for some rhyme or reason to the painting.

“Sure, that’s how you make new styles."

“I’d say it’s a shoo-in for winner, though considering the competition that’s probably not saying much.”

“Hey, I’ll take what I can get," Jane said. "Give me a minute to freshen up and we’ll go out. I can’t remember the last time I had something to eat.” 

Jane grabbed some clothes and trudged out of her room to the bathroom farther down the hall. The sound of the shutting door was followed by the splashing of a faucet, and with it, some degree of normalcy.

A much-needed breeze from outside stirred the stagnant room, not quite strong enough to dispel the lingering sense of oppression. Daria took yet another look at the painting. Something about it still troubled her, a quality made all the more frustrating for its elusiveness.

Glancing past the closet door, she saw a bunch of other canvases in varying states of completion, all piled together without much thought. Frowning, Daria got on her knees to examine them in greater detail. Numbering five in total, they displayed contents almost identical to the piece on the easel, though they had the hasty look of rough drafts. 

 _Way more careless than rough drafts_ , she mused, quite astonished by the crudity, the images made by an uncertain hand. Then again, Jane had said she’d been trying a new style. Had she done so much in just one night? It didn’t seem possible. 

_How long has Jane been doing this?_

Jane finally returned in her street clothes, some of her exhaustion washed away and her hair back in its severe order, though drooping shoulders betrayed her lack of sleep. Her lips turned up in a wry smile when she saw Daria examining the rough drafts.

“I really should throw those out. For an artist, rough drafts are kind of like baby pictures. Not things you’d want anyone to see," Jane said.

“Until you’re famous, in which case someone makes a coffee table book out of them.”

“I’ll give you an autographed copy as soon as it’s released.”

“That’ll probably raise its eBay price by a few bucks. You didn’t do this all last night, did you?”

“Huh? Oh, no, over the past few days. I really haven’t been sleeping much. Figure it’s good training for my crazy recluse stage.”

“I never should’ve let you read _We have Always Lived in the Castle_ ," Daria said, shaking her head. 

Jane laughed, the sound not quite concealing the tiredness in her voice.

“Come on, let’s get some pizza.”

*********

Even in the reassuring environment of white ceramic tables and red vinyl seats, Jane didn’t look quite herself, her expression weighted like a traveler’s after a long and difficult journey. Taking a table opposite the window where the painted Italian chef still smiled to passerby, Daria acknowledged that the Pizza King would be one aspect of town she’d miss up in Boston.

Standing on the precipice of a new and lonely world, it was becoming tougher each day to hate her surroundings. Lawndale's hard edges softened as if to spite her, reminding her that for all its ills, she’d been happier there than anywhere else—a thought only slightly ameliorated by Highland being the only real point of comparison. Quinn, of all people, was starting to become interesting! 

She supposed that pepperoni pizza would be her equivalent of the madeleine dipped in tea. 

“Wow, I really needed to leave the house. I just hope I can stay awake." Jane's words turned into a yawn at the end.

“You weren’t kidding about an irregular sleeping schedule.”

“Who can sleep when there’s inspiration? I’ll admit the dreams haven’t been much fun.”

“I don’t think I’ve ever heard you talk about your dreams before.”

“That’s because I’ve never had them like this. They feel real, you know? Experienced with all five senses? I usually don't remember these things when waking up, but here I’m not totally sure that I did wake up—wow, I can’t believe I just said that.” 

“If it makes you feel any better, we’re still in suburban waking nightmare that is Lawndale.”

“I guess it breaks even,” Jane said, yawning again.

“So tell me more about this showing.”

“It’s being held by this group called the Foundation for the Promotion of Local Talent," Jane explained. "They’re mostly sponsored by private donors, and they go around looking to see what people have to offer. Its home office is in Lawndale, but they do work all over the East Coast. All you really get for winning is a pat on the back and a bullet point on your resume, but hey, I’ll take it.”

“Keep reaching for the stars. That is cool, though. Who else is competing?”

“Probably some of the people who presented in Art at the Park. Heh, maybe a Jane Lane original will be hanging on Mr. Taylor’s wall this time.”

“What you’re working on will probably give Brittany nightmares.” Daria imagined Brittany screwing up her face in empty-headed confusion at the sight of Jane's work.

“If she can handle all those creepy dead animal heads," Jane said, "I’m sure she can take the artistic manifestation of my tortured psyche.”

Their conversation turned back to high school, as it so often did, even as the seemingly eternal figures already started slipping back into the past. Jane‘s attention kept wandering, eyelids settling shut at random moments, her sentences trailing off into silence.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” Daria asked.

“Yeah. Maybe I’ll go for a run—actually, scratch that, it’s too hot. I think I just need to finish that painting. Maybe come up with a title for it other than ‘that painting’," Jane said.

“Your obsessive drive is an inspiration to us all.”

“Hey, there are studies showing that creative types are more prone to madness. Though I think writers have it worse than visual artists, so you’re still crazier.”

“Then I hope my madness provides a suitable role model.”

They said little on the way back home. Daria shot worried glances at her nearly somnambulist friend. Jane waved goodbye as she stepped into the threshold of her decaying house. Daria‘s mind turned back to the discarded rough drafts. Thinking on them, it was hard to believe that they’d been made by Jane at all.


	2. Chapter 2

Balancing herself on a crate serving as an ersatz chair, oven-like heat pressing into her from all sides, Daria wondered if this would be the last time she’d ever ride in the Tank. 

When a sudden jolt nearly threw her on the grimy floor, she surmised that might not be such a bad thing.

“Sorry about that, Daria,” came Trent‘s smoke-scarred voice. “I didn’t see the pothole until it was too late.”

“That’s okay. I didn’t need all my fillings anyway.” 

Jane had slept through the impact, her right hand protectively clutched around her canvas-wrapped paintings. She somehow managed to look exhausted even while sleeping, an impression exacerbated by her mouth’s faint twitching motions, the movements of someone trying and failing to speak.

Outside, colorful houses receded into the past as Trent drove them towards Pat’s Easel, the art gallery selected for the show. Daria edged closer to the front. The simple motion conjured dozens of memories, all those times she looked on the driver with adolescent yearning, her soul made raw by the very idea. 

 _A different world, almost_.

“Have you seen these paintings?” Daria asked.

“Not yet. I figured I’d wait so I can see them when they look the way Jane wants," Trent said, his voice taking on the seriousness he attempted whenever discussing his sister.

 _More likely you just forgot to care_.

“They’re really good," Daria said.

“She’s got talent.”

“She’s been working really hard on it too. Has she been, uh, sleeping okay?” 

“Huh? I guess. Why?”

“Jane‘s just seemed really tired this past week.”

“You know how it is with artists, Daria. We put everything into our work. You won’t ever find me sleeping on a regular schedule—“

“Watch out!” Daria exclaimed, seeing the Tank veer into the incoming lane.

“Oh, right. Sorry,” he said, correcting the path. “Heh, no one ever said it was easy following your dreams.”

“Or safe.”

Retreating to the back of the van, she reflected that her worries were probably needless. It wasn’t as if anyone in the Lane family was known for keeping regular schedules.

Daria jogged her friend’s shoulder when the Tank came to a sputtering halt in a bland market plaza. It took her a moment to find Pat’s Easel, half-smothered between the storefronts of its neighbors, a Starbucks and a Verizon outlet. Faded paintings wilted behind dusty windows, looking as if they hadn't been replaced for decades.

“On the plus side, I don’t think you have to worry about this one being an art theft ring. If they were, they’d put more effort into it,” Daria said. Jane didn’t seem to hear as she stumbled out of the Tank with the paintings under her arm. A look of concern crossed Trent‘s face.

“You want some help with that?” Daria asked. 

“Nah, I’m okay. Let’s go.”

The interior of Pat’s Easel lived up to the exterior and then some. A paltry collection of generic paintings languished in stale air intermittently cooled by a noisy AC. All the usual suspects were there—sloppy coastal landscapes, children with faces straight out of the Uncanny Valley, and portraits that had tried to go for realism before making unintentional last-minute turns into abstraction.

A paper taped to the front desk advertised “Local Artist Competition – 7/26 – Courtesy of the Foundation for the Promotion of Local Talent.” A man whom Daria took to be the proprietor stood at the back, staring at one of the paintings until he noticed the visitors.

Daria almost recoiled when he turned to face them, more like some living exhibit in the Museum of Medical Oddities than a resident of Lawndale. Wide flabby lips sagged on a pallid face that would have looked more natural on a slug’s underbelly than on a human being. His head seemed to almost taper into a point, and Daria wondered if that was the result of genetics or some gruesome accident. The way he walked came across as wrong, his steps not placing weight at the right times, giving a hobbled appearance.

“Welcome to the gallery!” he said, and the normalcy of his voice brought Daria out of her morbid fascination. She felt a twinge of guilt for staring. Glancing around, she saw Trent also eyeing the man with uncertainty, though Jane seemed unaffected. “I’m Pat Mayhew, the owner.” 

“Hi, I’m Jane. I’m here to put some paintings on the showcase.”

“Great! Here, I’ll take those for you,” he offered. Some of the weariness in Jane‘s movements lifted the moment she handed them over to him. “Thanks. I’m still setting it up, but you’re all free to take a look.” 

With that, the trio followed him towards the back of the gallery, a drab partition placed between it and the front. More of the same sorts of paintings she'd seen up front waited on the other side—Jane probably didn’t have much to worry about in the way of competition.

Daria almost did a double-take when she saw a large and dark-colored painting propped up against the back wall. Thick oils swirled in a stagnant sky over a black sea, and weed-encrusted obelisks leaned at mad angles over sharp waves. Figures, smudged as if the artist couldn’t bear to work them into finer detail, twisted and danced in the shadows of a great monolith in the foreground.

It looked remarkably similar to Jane‘s in terms of content, though done with less skill. The artist had tried for a more realistic style, which only diluted the fantastical quality. At an utter loss at what to say, she turned to Jane, and then back to the nameless image on the wall. This one, at least, didn’t inspire any sense of vertigo, though that probably had more to do with the lack of fumes.

“Um, Jane,” she mumbled.

Jane stepped closer, her bleary eyes startled into wakefulness. 

"Yeah, the competition’s pretty fierce,” Pat chuckled. “That one’s from Darren Lansky, he brought it in yesterday. I like it; could be something from a heavy metal album cover.”

“It looks a lot like my submission,” Jane said, still staring at Darren's painting as Pat finished unwrapping her work. The sickly proprietor looked between the two, his drooping face bemused.

“Huh, that is odd. We actually have a third one like that too," he mentioned. "I’m still trying to find a place for it.”

“I’d say that’s more than just odd,” Daria said. 

“Hey, great minds think alike?" Pat suggested with a shrug. "But yours really stands out, Jane. The figures you painted at the bases are truly something else, very expressionistic.”

“Thanks, that was the idea.”

"But why are they so similar? Doesn’t that seem strange?” Daria continued.

“As an art dealer, I’ve seen stranger,” Pat said. “I wouldn’t worry too much about—“

He stopped at the sound of heavy feet stomping into the gallery, choked gasps struggling to reach a full-throated yell. 

“I know what you’re doing!” a woman bellowed, her voice deep and rough, modulated by a slight Texan drawl. 

Pat pressed a pale hand onto his forehead, his irritation clear.

“Excuse me while I go deal with this. Hopefully she won’t damage anything this time.”

“You stop right now!” she shouted again, a wheezy quality creeping into the voice.

Daria, Jane, and Trent hurried to the front, where they were confronted with the sight of Pat, his hands raised in a conciliatory gesture as he walked with exaggerated caution towards a livid Mrs. Johanssen, her craggy face flushed and eyes wide. The woman slammed her trunk-like arms on the front desk.

“Mrs. Johanssen, I don’t want to have to call the police on you, but I did ask you not to come here again.”

 _If they fight, my money’s on Johanssen_. Daria only had the briefest encounters with the woman, but never imagined her possessing such visible anger, each word coming out as an aggrieved snarl.

“You think that’s gonna stop me? I’m not letting it happen!” 

Mrs. Johanssen tore a painting off its hanger with a single swipe, and advanced toward Pat like an ambulatory Mt. Rushmore carving.

“Dammit!” Pat cursed. He waddled behind the desk and grabbed the phone, his pale and stubby fingers dancing out the pattern for 911.

“No!”

Mrs. Johanssen grabbed the phone and tore it out Pat’s hands. She ripped a drab landscape painting off its perch and stomped on it, her massive feet crushing the canvas. Only then did Daria see the tears streaming from Mrs. Johanssen’s eyes, which even then fixed on her.

“Girls, where is he keeping all them paintings? The bad ones?” the woman demanded.

 _You’ll need to be more specific_ , she thought, too stunned to voice it.

“Mrs. Johanssen, maybe you should sit down. You don’t want your heart acting up again,” Jane cautioned.

“This is too—“

Mrs. Johanssen leaned against the wall, her cheeks taking an ugly hue, her breathing rapid.

“That crazy woman is in my gallery again!” Pat shouted into the phone. “Send the police over right away.”

“Girls, I know what he’s doing,” Mrs. Johanssen said, her words forced out between sharp gasps. “It can’t happen here.” 

Flashing lights and wailing sirens suddenly filled the lot. A police car must have been nearby. 

“Mrs. Johanssen, you do know that I have a restraining order against you? Jane, I’m sorry that you had to see this. I’m afraid this woman is very ill. I assure you that nothing more will come of this.”

“Please,” Mrs. Johanssen gulped, her entire body trembling and covered in sweat.

They only watched as two officers marched into the gallery. Moments later, the police guided a deflated Mrs. Johanssen out of the store and into the back of the cruiser, leaving the front of the gallery in shambles.

*********

By the weekend, Daria was about ready to write off the whole episode as a series of slightly odd but not at all significant events made more ominous by her own anxiety regarding college. Even the confrontation seemed more absurd than threatening.

She pictured it retold as a _Sick Sad World_ episode. “In one corner, with 400 pounds of Texas fury, Mrs. Johanssen! In the other, half-frog and half-man, Pat Mayhew! See who wins the Clash of the Lawndale Titans, next on Sick Sad World!”

A pretty good byline. Pat didn’t really look like a fighter even without his decidedly odd physique, and Mrs. Johanssen would have had a field day with him had the police not arrived.

Fate prevented Daria from attending the showing. She'd been called away at the last minute by another battle in the endless war between Aunt Rita and her mother. Daria and Quinn mostly sat it out, and she remembered the almost inconceivable pride she felt at seeing Quinn reading _Mansfield Park_ entirely of her own volition.

 _If only you’d done that three years ago_ , she’d thought to herself, not allowing more than a brief, half-second smile at the scene (Daria herself was working through _Empire of the Sun_ ).

She’d met Jane the day before the gallery showing, determined to wring the most out of their last summer. Jane seemed more like her old self after submitting the painting: sharp, deadpan, and confident. They’d wiled away the afternoon through witticisms and television, as they’d done so many times in the past.

 _College can’t be that much of an improvement—too many Lawndale alumni matriculated into it_ , Daria reminded herself.

More of the same, in other words, but without the people who’d made it bearable the first time around. As such, she often lost herself in the blur of her life since she'd moved into Lawndale, drawing out the memories to create something eternal and constant.

Such sentimentality would have sickened her a mere month ago, but she hadn’t been quite so close to losing it.

The phone rang, yanking Daria back to the world of the living. She picked up the receiver and answered.

“Yo,” came the familiar voice, quiet and subdued.

“Oh, hey! Sorry I couldn’t make it to the show.”

“Ah, you didn’t miss much," Jane said. 

“How did you do?”

“I won.” 

"Well, I can buy you a pizza," Daria offered.

“I never turn down a free pizza. Here, come on over and we’ll have it delivered. Watch some _Sick Sad World_ reruns. You can spend the night, if you want." 

“Sure, that should be okay. Is, uh, everything all right?”

“Just been a long day. Figured it might be nice to have company.” 

“I’ll be there soon.”

Hanging up the phone, she reflected on how Jane‘s voice somehow recalled all the strange events of the past week. Alone in her air-conditioned room, Daria shivered, and wondered why.


	3. Chapter 3

For the first time since the mess with Tom (a mess that Daria realized was largely her own fault), she found herself regretting going to Jane‘s house. Jane had ushered her in the moment she arrived and then walked around the house like a woman possessed, checking the locks over and over again.

Daria would have found it grimly appropriate if Artie had delivered the pizza. However, the pizza boy turned out to be none other than Jeffy, his appearance a brief stab of normalcy in the peculiar environment. 

They retired to Jane‘s room, still torrid despite open windows, and watched familiar images flicker across the screen. Their commentary, half-hearted from the start, soon faded into silence. Jane drew her knees up to her chin, bloodshot eyes switching between the screen and the window.

The heat and the almost visible fear in the room finally drove Daria to take action. She grabbed the remote and pressed the pause button before standing up and facing Jane. Only barely aware of her surroundings, it took Jane a moment to notice.

“Jane, what’s going on?”

She didn’t say anything at first, her eyes downcast.

“I guess I’m not very good at hiding things. It’s something really stupid," Jane admitted.

“I don’t know if I can help, but I’ll try,” Daria said, some of the tension leaving her body. 

“Yeah. Okay,” Jane said, taking a deep breath, and looking to her left, as if embarrassed to face Daria. “It’s these dreams I’ve been having.”

“Like nightmares?” 

“Guess so. I really can’t believe I’m getting so worked up about this. Just dreams, for God’s sake! These are more realistic, though. Way more realistic," Jane added, finally facing her friend. "It’s why I started that project. I’d get up right in the middle of the night, all these images crowding my head. Half the time I didn’t even feel like I was the one painting them, if that makes sense.” 

“Okay,” Daria said, not quite sure what to say next.

“Since you haven’t laughed me out of the room, I guess it doesn’t sound too nutty.”

“Come on, Jane. After everything—well, I’ll take it seriously.”

“Actually, maybe some snark would make it easier. I dunno. Every time I close my eyes I see it again, this really big and old city, or temple, or something. You know HR Giger?” Jane asked.

“The guy who designed the eponymous Alien, right? And who keeps doing it over and over again?”

“Heh, yeah, him. Kinda like that, though that’s not doing a good job describing it. There aren’t really any words. Anyway, it’s really old, the buildings look all wrong. Everything’s definitely too big for people.” Something like awe crept into Jane's voice as she described the scene.

“Are you doing anything in this city?”

“I’m not even sure if I’m in the dream. If I am, I’m just standing there. At the end there’s this movement somewhere far away, like the entire sky is alive. That’s when I wake up." 

Jane shrugged.

“When I say it like that it sounds pretty ridiculous. If you do want to laugh, I won’t hold it against you.”

“Ridiculous or not, it is bothering you.”

"It went away the night after I delivered the painting, and I thought I was free. Then it came back, worse than before. Now here’s where it gets pretty weird: at the showing, I met Darren Lansky and Joanna Porter." 

“Yeah, that art dealer mentioned Darren," Daria said. "He was the one who made the painting that looked kind of like yours.”

“Uh huh. Joanna did something like that, too. All three of us had the same dream, and they looked as messed up as me. We talked about it for a while, but didn’t really get anywhere.

"Joanna kept trying to say it was coincidence," Jane continued, "but I could tell she didn’t believe it. The thing with the Foundation isn’t over yet, either. Since I won, they asked me to do another painting for them. Some kind of decoration for their office.”

“Are you going to do it?”

“I said yes.”

“Unless they made you sign a contract, you should still be able to back out." Daria was pretty sure that was the case.

“Yeah, I might do that. Probably won’t make the dreams go away though. Part of me’s hoping that finishing this completely will get it out of my system, if that makes sense.”

“Okay, well let’s see what we have here," Daria said. "You and two other artists in the area have been having upsetting dreams of a strange landscape. You’ve all made paintings based on these dreams, and submitted them to the showing; yours won, and despite the mental strain and the lack of any financial recompense, you want to make another painting. On top of this, Mrs. Johanssen tries to disrupt the gallery for no logical reason.”

“Your conclusion?”

“I have no idea.” Daria had hoped that her description would underscore the ridiculousness of the whole thing, but she could tell it hadn't convinced Jane. In truth, it hadn't really convinced Daria, either.

“That’s the thing, isn’t it? Nothing here really makes sense. That’s probably why it doesn’t really matter—it just doesn’t feel that way.”

“Do you feel better having it off your chest?”

“A little," Jane admitted. "Still seems like there’s something really strange going on that we just can’t see, but I don’t know how to begin looking for it. I’ll probably still have the dreams too; it’s like they’re calling to me. I don’t want to go sleep, but I know I’ll crash sooner or later.”

Daria ran it through her head again. She’d never heard of multiple people having shared dreams. More likely they’d just all had bad dreams that weren’t actually that similar, but ended up taking relatively similar forms when expressed. A hell of a coincidence, but within the realm of possibility. Mrs. Johanssen probably didn’t have anything to do with it.

“If you need help tonight, I’ll be here,” Daria offered, hoping it counted as some consolation.

“Thanks.”

It would never have crossed Daria‘s mind in a million years just how much help Jane would need that night.


	4. Chapter 4

Daria endured her own restless dreams that night. Hers were more prosaic than those described by Jane, populated by the endless tunnels and menacing faces common to nightmares. Waking from the sensation of falling, it took her a few minutes to realize that Jane was not in the room.

She sat up from her sleeping bed and groped the nightstand before finding the metal frames of her glasses. She put them on and tried to make sense of her surroundings, the elements of dream corroding into reality. A bit of summer heat still lingered in the room.

“Jane?” she said, her voice not much more than a whisper.

No one slept in the bed, the sheets strewn in disarray. Daria stood up on legs still wobbly from sleep and touched the mattress. It was cold.

 _This can’t be happening. Wait, stay calm. It’s probably nothing_.

“Jane?” she called out again, louder, her voice bouncing off the dusty walls.

 _You’re going to walk out of the room, and Jane will be coming back up from the kitchen, or from the bathroom. This is absurd_.

Her mind flashed back to Mrs. Johanssen, the desperation in her face, and to Pat Mayhew’s inhuman appearance.

 _There are more things in Heaven and Earth, Daria, than are dreamt of in your philosophy_.

“Thanks for that, Hamlet, I really needed it,” she muttered. 

She walked to the doorway and looked both ways, like a child crossing a street for the first time.

“Jane? Are you all right?”

A thud rattled through the roof’s aging timber as if in response. Daria flinched at the sound. 

_On the roof?_

Daria shouted Jane's name again, sure that her voice would carry through the thin walls. When she received only silence, she thought again of the noise on the roof.

Not quite believing her own actions, Daria hurried back to Jane‘s room and leaned out the window, hoping she was somewhere in the backyard (what she’d be doing there was another question altogether). Streetlights behind the fence cast their sterile yellow glare on the overgrown yard, the new gazebo already succumbing to neglect.

She was about to sound out another call when she heard scuffling noises on the slate roof. Daria's heart nearly stopped in her chest. Someone was there, Jane or an intruder.

“Jane, are you up there? Who is it? If you don’t say anything, I’m going to call the police.”

She kept her voice level, calm even in the strangeness of the situation. Some kind of response, even the curse or threat of a discovered burglar (as if anyone would bother burglarizing Casa Lane) would have been welcome. Instead, garbled words struggled through the stagnant air from up above. Words, Daria soon realized, spoken in Jane‘s voice. 

“I can hear you. What are you doing up on the roof?” she demanded. 

 _She can’t expect me to go up there_.

Never particularly afraid of heights, her circumstances nonetheless seemed to lengthen the drop to the ground below. A survivable fall in all likelihood, but not something she wanted to risk.

“Jane, come back down here. I’ll, uh, help you back through the window.”

Closing her eyes, Daria took a deep breath. Rough words from above scraped her ears. She thought of slipping back into her bedroll and waking back up to the waning days of adolescence, the whole event dismissed as nightmare, Jane returned to her normal (albeit unconventional) self. 

 _Anything for Jane_ , an earlier version of herself said.

Daria positioned herself to sit on the windowsill. She pressed her back to the precipice and inched farther out. As she kept her eyes on the roof, she tried hard, so very hard, to not think of all the nothing behind and below her. Bare legs quivered in tension and she tried to steady herself. The longer she thought about it, she knew, the less likely she was to do it. Moving her upper body slightly forward she raised her right leg to plant the foot on the sill, the wood harsh against the sole.

 _You’re doing okay. Stay calm_.

Her heart beat as if ready to burst. Keeping a tight grip on the surface she lifted herself in a sudden jerk, Not giving herself time to think twice she shot up with both arms to grab at the edge of the roof, scrabbling on the slate until her forearms got on the patchy surface.

Upon realizing she hung from a second-story roof, completely unsupported, she almost let go. The hesitation cost her. A horrible, drooping exhaustion ran down from her wrists and into her shoulders, her body suddenly weighing twice as much as normal. Coated in sweat, she threw everything she had into the last pull, a frantic animal motion dedicated to pure survival.

At last securely on the roof, Daria let the fear seize her for just a moment and fell prone on the decaying slate surface, shaking from head to toe with her eyes wide open in shock.

Whispers, heavy and unknown, reminded Daria of her purpose.

She stood up and felt a brief surge of relief at seeing Jane farther up the roof, seated against the chimney. Her head lowered as if in defeat, a stream of sound spilling from her lips. Daria looked at her for a while, lacking the slightest idea as to what to do. She tried to think back to an abnormal psychology textbook she’d once read, trying to match the babbling to an illness. Daria soon gave up; even if she could put a name to the condition, it wouldn’t really help her or Jane.

“Jane, I’m here. We need to get down," Daria urged.

Her foot dislodged a rotten shingle, and the ruined piece slid down to the edge. The sight spurred a new understanding about Jane: her lifetime spent in this crumbling edifice, always either too cold or too hot. Daria knew it mostly as a refuge, but how different it might look from another perspective.

Putting her mind back on task, Daria crouched down to Jane‘s level and crept forward. She could tell that Jane spoke nothing from English or Spanish, her awful noises more akin to pathology than language. 

Should she reach out and grab Jane‘s shoulder? Or would that just shock her into pushing Daria right off the roof? It occurred to Daria that she ought to have called 911 back in the house; so fearful as to what might be happening, the thought hadn’t even crossed her mind. She cursed her hastiness.

 _At least Jane‘s still in one piece. Physically, anyway_.

“Jane, I don’t know if you can hear me, but everything will be okay,” she said, her voice still flat in an emergency. “I’m going to take your hand, okay? Can you hear me?”

Jane continued making sounds that did not seem designed for any human mouth, and Daria shuddered.

_Maybe I should just crawl back in and call emergency services. I don’t know how to guide anyone down from this situation. If I leave her up here though…_

“On the count of three, okay? One… two… three.”

Her hand grasped Jane‘s. Relief, like she never felt before, flooded her when Jane‘s eyes sprang open from the contact. Pale blue eyes looked at Daria in uncomprehending shock.

“Stay calm. Are you with me?”

Jane‘s hand jerked back from Daria‘s gentle hold. She scrambled to her feet, eyes fixed and distant. Daria prepared to offer more calming words. Then, Jane reached out with both hands, seized Daria by the shoulders, and shoved.

The roof flew out from under Daria. Her shoulder slammed onto the shingles as she hit and rolled. Hands scrabbled for some kind of hold, fingers scraping on the edges until at last she began to slow, inches away from the edge.

Her glasses askew, she instinctually tried to fix them, too shocked to even begin figuring out what had happened. The sound of running footsteps forced her to confront this terror.

“Jane!” she cried.

Jane aimed a terrific kick at Daria‘s prone body and she lurched to the side just in time to avoid it. Twin fears—of her being pushed off and of Jane falling off—gave Daria an unnatural strength, and she managed to get back up to her feet. Daria ran back up to the top of the roof near the chimney, where she’d at least have high ground. 

A terrified Daria looked back to see Jane advancing, her face devoid of any emotion. Jane continued her ragged chant.

“Stop this. You can’t do this,” Daria muttered, her voice weak. She wanted to scream out more than anything, but something held her back, dreams of an ordered world keeping their hold. This too, would pass. It had to.

Daria kept telling Jane to stop, to come to her senses. None of the words made a difference. Only when Jane stood a few feet away did Daria try to back further down the other side. She moved too late. Jane seized her again, but instead of tossing her aside she kept her grip, pinning Daria against the chimney.

 _No. No. This can’t be_.

“Let me go,” she said, her words oddly hollow. Daria's mind struggled even as her body went limp in disbelief. Jane pulled her away from the chimney and toward the edge, so that her grip alone kept Daria from falling. 

 _Not like this, you’re my friend!_  

Her vision started to blur, as if trying to spare her the horror of the scene.

 _This isn’t Jane. It’s something else, it isn’t_.

Jane pulled her a hair’s breadth closer, as if preparing for the final push.

“No. You aren’t doing this,” Daria mumbled, barely able to hear her own voice. “We’re friends.”

 _Are you really her friend?_ asked a still-lucid voice in the back of her brain.

Life suddenly came back to Jane‘s face. The chant ended mid-groan, and her eyes went wide in shock.

“Oh my God!” Jane shouted.

She pulled Daria back from the brink in desperation, and the two of them collapsed together on the roof.

“Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God,” Jane wailed, clutching her friend. 

“It’s okay,” Daria mumbled, her mind still in a fog.

Too afraid to move, they waited for the dawn.

*********

Daria and Jane clambered back through the window on exhausted limbs, the rising sun’s prickling heat already warming up the dreary house. Both stayed silent as they staggered down to the kitchen, the comparatively bright room promising sanctuary.

Daria tried to reorient herself, still feeling as if her heart might burst right through her chest, seeing a threat in every movement.

 _Something funny might be good now_.

“I guess I’ll go make us some coffee,” she intoned. “If anything can make us forget what almost happened, it’s routine.”

“How can you say that? I tried to kill you, Daria!”

“I’m still alive,” she said, more out of obligation than any real confidence. With shaking hands she turned on the coffee maker, filling it up with water and grinds while Jane watched through tear-stained eyes.

“Okay. We’re both okay. Right?”

“Beats me," Jane said, shaking her head.

“Neither of us is dead or hurt. Maybe slightly unstable, but that was probably a given."

A tiny hint of a smile on Jane released some of Daria‘s tension. Sitting at the table, Daria described the events from her perspective. Though her hands still shook when she retrieved the coffee, a rigorous calm settled over her mind.

“The dreams were back again last night," Jane said. "Worse than before. Is this something sleepwalkers do?”

“There are accounts of sleepwalkers getting into cars and driving across town, or of making food in the kitchen. Getting up on the roof doesn’t seem so far-fetched," Daria pointed out. It was all in the context. 

“But the other stuff—“

Daria paused, not sure if she should continue. She decided to be honest. “There are, uh, a few cases in which a sleepwalker has murdered someone. These are very rare—“

Jane buried her face in her hands, sobbing again.

“No. It wasn’t you, it was some kind of misfiring neuron. Stop feeling sorry for yourself and listen to me.”

Jane‘s face shot back up, disbelieving. She made a ragged sound halfway between a laugh and a sob.

“Boy, you always know how to cut straight to the point,” she said, her voice still unsteady.

“It saves time. You have no reason to feel guilty. You do need to see a doctor about this.”

“It’s been a while since anyone here’s seen a doctor. I think I’m still on my parent’s plan, but who knows when they last paid the fees. Daria, I can’t believe that you’re okay with this.”

“I’m not okay with it! However, I can see it for what it is; a medical disorder. Jane you—“ Daria paused, feeling a lump in her throat. “—you’ve always been there for me. Even if I haven’t always returned the favor.” 

Jane nodded.

_This is probably the part where Quinn would hug Sandi, and they’d all have a big cry before getting makeovers._

“So, anyway, yeah. See a doctor. If you don’t have the money, my mom would probably be willing to give you some.”

“Let me see what I can get with my own funds first," Jane insisted. "Trent‘s going to be back in a few days, and maybe he actually earned something this time. One thing’s still bothering me, though: do sleepwalkers get intense dreams?” 

“I’m not sure. I read a book about this stuff a few years ago, and I can’t remember if it mentioned that. I’ll look it up for you," Daria offered. 

“Because that seems important. These are really vivid. I still see bits of them.” 

“What do you mean?”

“Those weird buildings. I see them on the edge of my vision sometimes.”

“That could be part of it.” Daria spoke slowly, puzzled by this new revelation. That didn't sound like mere sleepwalking.

“I’ll bring it up with the doc. I’m sure he’ll get a nice bonus for referring me to a psychiatrist.”

“See, everyone wins. How soon do you think you can arrange an appointment?”

“Depends. It’s always hard to say with my family." 

“Don’t wait. This looks pretty serious.”

“This week, for sure."

“Do you want me to spend the night again? Or you could spend it at my place. That might be better; if you have another episode, I can just wake you up with one of Quinn‘s weird perfumes—sorry,” she added, seeing Jane‘s flicker of irritation.

“No, it’s okay. I guess it’s better to laugh than to cry, right? Besides, after what happened you’re not the one who should be saying sorry for anything. I think I’ll be okay. Trent will be home in a few days.”

“Call him and tell him it’s an emergency. He’ll go home for you.”

"Yeah, I'll let him know."

"You also need to get some more rest. Exhaustion can make sleepwalking worse, and you've been working pretty hard." 

“Yeah, that's probably all this is. Besides, I should get more sleep to prep for the Foundation's special project. It starts this Tuesday."

“Are you sure you want to do that? All this painting’s been taking a lot out of you.”

“Nah, that’s how we artists recover from bad events, we put it on canvas so the rest of the world can share in our angst. At least, that’s how it used to work. Besides, it's not like they're going to keep me there overnight; I'll get plenty of rest, Dr. Morgendorffer."

“Just call Trent, at least. He has a right to know.”

“Sure.”

********* 

Daria got home just past noon and slipped between the covers after a quick shower. Scrapes covered her arms and legs, and every inch of her body ached. She’d spent the rest of the morning with Jane in a gallant attempt at normalcy, the decaying old house made familiar by sunlight and their shared joy.

She awoke a few hours later into the grogginess of an idle Sunday afternoon. A vestigial high school sense warned her of school the next day, and she dismissed it with an indulgent smirk.

The near-disaster of the previous night faded into the distance. A terror, to be sure, but one within her power to help solve. Jane‘s future posed more complex questions. Somnambulism to that degree could be a big problem, even in a place like Lawndale. Resigning her to Trent's care struck her as unwise.

They’d still be in close contact, at least. Technology easily bridged the geographic gap between Boston and Lawndale. Instant messenger had its limits, however. Worse, the idea that Jane would continue her sleepwalking when she reached BFAC. Who knew if she'd really solve the problem before then? Doctors didn't always prescribe the correct regimens. The idea of Jane stumbling through trash-ridden alleys and crowded streets, unaware and attacking those much stronger and crueler...

Daria forced the thought from her mind.

 _She's way too gifted to stay here_.

For all that, Jane definitely needed to be ready for when she went to Boston. The presence of those who cared about her might make a crucial difference in her recovery. 

 _Hell, maybe I can stay here for a little while, get a few classes under my belt at community_.

Astonished at her own thoughts, Daria shook her head. Her parents had paid a fortune for Raft. Last-minute nostalgia aside, she had no real desire to stay on in Lawndale.

Her mind already in motion, she began to reexamine the context of Jane‘s sleepwalking. The dreams remained puzzling, prompting her to turn on the computer and go online, where a brief search indicated that dreams played no real part in the condition.

 _Not what I wanted to learn_. 

Still, plenty of people had weird dreams. Harder to explain was Mrs. Johanssen’s rampage through the gallery. She doubted it bore any meaningful relation, but the very real fear in the woman’s voice and the way she referred to the “bad paintings” had made an impression, one growing harder to ignore.

Pushing away from her computer, Daria looked out the window and to the street, a sight so mundane as to provide relief. There was no reason to assume any connection; the human mind had a way of creating patterns where none existed.

She wished she could talk about the issue to an understanding third party, but no such possibility presented itself. For one, it was a personal matter for Jane. Another, she simply didn’t know anyone. She might have considered Tom as little as a month ago, but they’d quickly lost contact after splitting. His last communication had been an anemic “Hey, how are you doing?” type of conversation via IM. He’d logged off before her.

Tom’s presence disrupted her memories of the past three years, his presence harder to explain in hindsight. She couldn’t think badly of him. He’d been a good boyfriend—at least, he’d been good to her.

Daria didn’t like thinking back on that night, to the awkward kiss that nearly destroyed everything. Her ethics, every merciless iron rule she’d set in place for herself—all tossed to the wind.

She’d never wanted romance, or at least that’s what she told herself, but the idea of marching alone in that regard troubled her on some level. Jane got opportunities all the time—with Tom, part of Daria believed that he'd be her only chance. She did what she had to do to survive.

 _Because in the end, you’re just like everyone else. Politicians who lie for votes, execs who pocket money that’s not theirs, all the people you hold in contempt. Of course, just because everyone does it, doesn’t make it less wrong, less deserving of anger._  

Her mood darkened, she forced herself to focus of more immediate problems, and found herself increasingly dwelling on Mrs. Johanssen. With that, an idea came to her.


	5. Chapter 5

_I can’t believe I’m actually doing this_.

Calling the venture ill-advised barely began to cover it, but Daria was there all the same. Her initial burst of manic curiosity faded into doubt as she drove to the edge of the suburb, specifically to the stretch of modest tract homes where Mrs. Johanssen lived. She couldn’t be sure that the woman wasn’t still in police custody.

 _On the plus side, it’s not more insane than anything else in the past few days_.

Daria stepped out of the car and into the slow-roast heat of the late afternoon, red light bleeding into the sky. A single-story blue home waited at the end of the walkway, its lawn tidy and plain.

Imagining herself with Jane, bags of chocolate in hand like that day so long ago, she marched up to the door and knocked. Part of her hoped that no one was home. The faded green Civic in the driveway, however, indicated otherwise. 

“Just a minute!” a voice wheezed.

The door opened a crack to reveal Mrs. Johanssen’s hard face, dark eyes suspicious.

“Oh, it’s you,“ she grunted.

“Hi, Mrs. Johanssen. We’ve met a few times before. My name’s Daria,” she said, her voice sounding like a pre-recorded message. “Do you have a minute?” 

“You here to laugh at me? I’m not gonna put up with that, I’ll tell you right now," Mrs. Johanssen threatened.

“No. I had some questions about, uh, Pat’s Easel. I want to hear your side of the story.”

The door slammed shut. Then she heard the sliding of a bolt, and it opened again. Mrs. Johanssen stood to the side and motioned for her to enter.

“I guess you girls did do me a good turn back when I fainted. Always felt sort of bad about complaining for you not selling me the chocolates," the woman said.

“That’s okay.”

The interior was more or less what Daria remembered, a standard suburban assemblage of simple furniture and bric-a-brac. Mrs. Johanssen guided her to a worn but comfy-looking sofa next to a glass-top coffee table.

“You want anything to drink?” Mrs. Johanssen offered.

“No thanks, I probably won’t be here long.”

Nodding, Mrs. Johanssen settled her bulk onto a chair opposite Daria.

“I’m just going to go ahead and tell you, and if you want to laugh and leave, go ahead, I don’t really care,” she began. “I know what they’re doing at Pat’s Easel. First, tell me: what were you doing there?”

“My friend, Jane, was submitting a painting she made.”

“Was it one of the bad ones?”

“How do you mean bad? She’s an excellent artist.” 

“I mean it showed dark things, evil things," Mrs. Johanssen described. "Things you wouldn’t want on a painting.”

 _Great, I’m probably dealing with a religious nut_.

“Maybe according to some perspectives.”

“You’re not making this easy, Daria,” she growled. “Paintings of some ugly city, right? Like Stonehenge, but in the water, with these monsters dancing around?”

“I guess that’s a fair description.”

“Listen to me, here, Daria. I’m from Galveston. You know where that is?”

“Coastal Texas. I’m actually from Texas. Highland.”

“Oh, well a fellow Texan!” she said, brightening up for the first time. “Maybe that means you’ll be tough enough to handle this. Back when I was just a little older than you, a really peculiar sort, Joshua Stafford, came into town and opened an art gallery.”

 _By peculiar, you mean that football was only his second-favorite sport?_ Daria didn’t even smirk at the thought.

“He looked just like that Pat fella. Barely human, like his grandma had been a fish or a frog or something. Still, we didn’t make nothing of it. Not his fault, and he seemed friendly enough.

“Now my little brother, Andy, he was one of them artistic sorts; always making pictures. Drove my folks nuts, but he was good at it. Then one day he starts getting these awful dreams. I remember, I’d hear him wake up in the other room, and then see him turn on the light and start painting like crazy.”

A chill settled on Daria.

 _This can’t be happening_.

“Made my folks mad as hell, but Andy couldn’t stop. They figured it might be some drugs, but I knew that was wrong, not Andy. He was clean as a whistle. What he made was strange, though—the bad paintings I was telling you about. I guess he did a good job, when it came to skill.

“Joshua announced a big showing at his gallery, so Andy jumped at the chance. A couple of other folks made paintings a lot like his; they’d been having dreams too.”

“These paintings: they all showed the same thing?” Daria asked, her voice quiet.

 _This whole thing is starting to resemble some elaborate Candid Camera prank. Any minute now, some bastard’s going to come out of a hiding place and tell me I’m on TV. It’s the only explanation_.

“I just said that, didn’t I? Andy didn’t win, at any rate, but the dreams didn’t stop. Joshua closed shop and left town right after that, we never knew why. Andy kept getting worse.

“He would wake up every night, crying like a girl, and spend the day painting the same damn thing over and over again! My pop never really liked him very much, always thought he was funny, and they finally took him to one of them asylums.”

Mrs. Johanssen’s voice shook, her face scrunched in a frantic attempt at control.

“They released him a year later, but he wasn’t ever the same. All the life just sucked right out of him. He hung himself a month after coming back.”

Mrs. Johanssen covered her face with her hands, body quivering in silent sobs.

“I’m very sorry to hear that, Mrs. Johanssen.”

“Do you have a brother, Daria?”

“A little sister.”

“You keep her close. Maybe if I’d stood up for Andy more he’d have been okay.”

“It’s not your fault.”

Daria shifted in her seat, trying to sort through this information, finding that easier than trying to offer more lame condolences. She never knew what to do when tears were involved, other than try to change the subject and ignore the guilt she felt for not addressing it. Tears never seemed to solve anything.

“I left home the day after the funeral, never looked back. I did start asking some questions; I wanted to find Joshua and make him pay! Never did track him down, but I learned a few things. You ever hear of the Innsmouth Raid? Back in the ‘20s?”

“Um, yeah, that was some big anti-bootlegging operation.”

“Nuh uh. Well, maybe there was some of that, but there was a lot more. Y’see, everyone in Innsmouth had this disease, made them look all wrong. Like Joshua looked, and now Pat. They ran some kind of cult too, killed people for these awful sea gods, made others go crazy.”

“Sea gods?” The ridiculousness of the statement pulled Daria out of Mrs. Johanssen's spell.

“You heard me! That’s what they believed, and that was the real reason the Feds stomped them out. But a few survived! That’s what Joshua and Pat are—they’ve got Innsmouth blood, and they’re trying to spread their evil wherever they go!

“Not many folks know about this. One of them who did, an old professor out in Peoria, showed me part of this book he had. Called it the Necronomicon.”

“Necronomicon? Like in _The Evil Dead_?” With that, Daria's fear ebbed even further.

“I don’t know anything about any evil dead, but this sure seemed pretty evil. Talked about some of these sea monsters. He reckoned it was some kind of holy book for these freaks. That’s about all I ever got to learn about it though.”

“I’m sorry for bringing this up again, but did you ever find out why Joshua left so quickly?”

“He had worse up his sleeve. He said he was going to have the winner—Betty, I think her name was—do a special project. Something made him leave before that happened, not that it helped Betty. She got deep into drugs, died a year later from sticking something bad in her arm.”

“A special project?” The words struck like lightning. Whatever occult nonsense Mrs. Johanssen was ranting about, something strange was happening.

“I don’t know anything about it. Probably best that it didn’t happen; poor Betty had enough bad things happen to her.”

Gripped by a new sense of urgency, Daria almost jumped to her feet.

“Thank you for your time, Mrs. Johanssen. I know it must have been painful talking about it. I really have to go.” 

“You took me serious, more than my husband ever does,” she sighed. “Now Daria, you need to warn your friend. I don’t want to see this happen to anyone else. Maybe a lot of what I said was crazy, but there’s real evil here, and I know I ran into it. I don’t want you or your friend to end up like my Andy.”

“We’ll be careful. Thanks again for telling all of this to me.”

Turning around to leave, suppressing the urge to bolt out of the house, Daria caught sight of a framed photo on the wall. A young woman, broad and heavyset but exuding an unmistakable confidence, stood on a beach with her left arm draped around a skinny boy a few years younger than her. Both were dressed in clothes from the late ‘60s.

“That’s me and Andy right there. I keep it as a reminder, even though I sometimes want to take it down.”

“Ah,” Daria said, her mind too busy to formulate a proper response. Offering another hasty thanks, she left the house and broke into a run after the door closed. Once at her car, she took the cell phone out of the glove compartment and dialed Jane‘s number, terrified of not receiving an answer.

“Hello?” The sound of Jane's voice soothed some of Daria's fears.

“Jane? Are you all right?”

“Depends on how you define ‘all right’. I haven’t had any sleepwalking episodes, if that's what you're worried about.”

“Yeah. Listen, I don’t think you should do the Foundation’s special project.”

“Why not?"

Her mind raced for an answer. Honesty probably offered the best policy.

“I just talked to Mrs. Johanssen. Apparently something like this happened to her.”

Daria explained what she’d just been told, fully aware of how ridiculous it all sounded. Her confidence faltered by the word, so she spoke faster in hopes of getting through it all without hanging up from sheer embarrassment.

“Wait. Daria, you’re serious about this, aren’t you.”

“Look, I’m sure Mrs. Johanssen has a confused idea as to what actually happened. I know I’m probably overreacting. After all that’s happened though, I think it’s best to avoid this.” 

“Jeez, Daria, I’m not made out of glass.”

“That’s not—could you please just not do this?” Daria begged.

“I actually think I’d feel a lot better if I did. I did a little of my own research, and it doesn’t sound like there’s any connection between dreams and sleepwalking.”

“You don’t think it’s odd that Mrs. Johanssen’s story lines up so perfectly with what’s been happening?”

“Sure, I think it’s weird, but so what? Coincidences usually don’t mean anything; you taught me that! I’m really surprised that you’re the one saying all this.”

Daria paused, trying to think of some way to back out of the ridiculous situation. What on Earth had convinced her to take Mrs. Johanssen at face value? She’d suffered a tragedy, sure, but that didn’t make her credible.

“You know what, Jane? Maybe I’m still a little mixed up. That does sound pretty absurd.”

She recalled Mrs. Johanssen’s weeping face, on the other hand, as being anything but.

“Something strange is going on here, but it’s probably no worse than that one time everybody got freaked out about communist aliens," Jane said.

“Good point.”

“All right, you actually woke me up from the middle of a recovery nap, and I’d better get back to it.”

“Still getting the nightmares?”

“No.”

“Hopefully you can forget this conversation ever happened.”

“See you later,” Jane said, with a laugh.

********* 

Daria‘s emotions switched between embarrassment and renewed concern all through the night The former tended to be stronger, yet she could not so easily dismiss Mrs. Johanssen’s story and it’s odd similarities to recent events.

Curiosity moved her to do some research on the Innsmouth Raid and the Necronomicon. Oddly, the raid seemed to have completely bypassed the conspiracy radar, with no one thinking it anything other than part of Prohibition. Perhaps Mrs. Johanssen had manufactured that lead on her own. 

The Necronomicon turned out to be a ridiculous occult tome of dubious provenance. She found a dozen partial online transcriptions, usually of eye-searing red or yellow text on a black background, flanked by rotating skulls and burning torches.

The only really useful information came from a site debunking the book, which argued that no such person named Abdul Alhazred (not even a real Arabic name, apparently) had ever written such a text, and that it was instead the invention of 18th century English mystics who attributed the translation to John Dee (whose interest in celestial numerology, an entirely different kind of nonsense, made him an unlikely author).

Daria did have to give some credit to the Necronomicon’s authors for at least being a bit more creative—Cthulhu instead of Satan, R’lyeh rising instead of Mercury being in the right phase—but her research just rendered the whole thing ridiculous.

With Mrs. Johanssen’s bizarre behavior explained (and, she had to admit, the parallels still unexplained), Daria began to think about her own role in the whole mess. The idea of leaving did bother her more than she cared to admit, independence quite terrifying when held so close to her. A few years ago she’d have jumped at the chance, confident that she’d be able to brush off the worst the world had to show. However, the episode with Tom had demonstrated that she was more corruptible, more malleable, than she cared to admit.

 _Just because you lapsed in your standards once doesn’t mean that you will again_.

The lack of sleep catching up to her, she prepared for bed and soon had the lights off, her head on the pillow. About a month remained before school started. 

 _One month without Tom, without Principal Li or Mr. O'Neill. One month with your family less annoying than they used to be. One month you can spend with Jane_.

Satisfied by that, she slept.

*********

Jane hadn’t precisely lied about not getting nightmares. It wasn’t as if the otherworldly vistas had gone away or changed in content; merely, they no longer held any terror.

She'd entered a new world not long after Daria had gone back home, the grand corpse city manifesting in the furniture of her aging home. Walls and frames melted, as pliable as glass in a Dali painting, and opened up new vistas of untold glories. Jane stood at the precipice of a new world, one that touched only the minds of the worthy.

Drab normalcy sometimes returned to the dusty rooms. These reversions left Jane alternating between relief and panic, her mind not yet willing to be severed from her old life yet still craving the alien sights.

Daria‘s call came as an unwelcome interruption. She'd answered all the same, moved by a remnant of the horror she felt from the sleepwalking episode. Jane didn't see any reason for Daria to be involved, at least not yet.

 _She never feels very comfortable doing new things, and this is pretty new_.

Dwelling on the issue only robbed Jane of her of time amidst the visions, and she vowed to never do so again. She lived what other artists only dreamed. 

 _Why did this ever frighten me?_ she wondered, beholding the inevitable realm with new eyes. The last of the rotting house’s walls peeled away. Her bed transformed into dark stone that possessed the consistency of skin. A great plain of plasticine viscera splashed and coiled for miles all around, and beyond that towered the mighty temples, their black surfaces gilded in suppuration.

No longer a stranger to the place, she felt no fear as something lifted her from the altar. The sea of limp flesh uncoiled fine cilia in tribute at her passing. Blister-capped temples bled and shook, soft metal scales tearing through yielding skin to renew the City, so long lost and buried. 

Her guardian carried her farther each time. It was preparing her for something even more wondrous that lay behind this new world, the truth of existence written in the stars. Bits and pieces of the final pattern shone out through the muck, getting clearer with ever passing moment.

Of the world’s billions of people, Jane alone could recreate the pattern. There were plenty of more skilled artists, but none saw what she saw. Once she etched it on the canvas of reality, His herald would arrive, ushering in a new era. 

Jane knew no fear when the vision faded that time, certain it would return in greater detail. Lying on her dank bed, flies crawling on the ceiling, she felt her lips turn up in a weak smile.

“Don’t worry, Daria,” she muttered. “I’ll go to the doctor soon, like you said. I just need to see this thing through to the end. You’ll probably think it’s really cool.”

Her only answer came from the buzzing of the flies.

*********

Monday passed between the pages of books. Daria called Jane twice, her failure to answer the first call almost prompting Daria to make a visit. Caution won out, and she was rewarded with an answer on the second try.

“You’ll never guess who Quinn saw at the food court," Daria said, as the conversation wound down.

“Dr. Shar flipping burgers?”

"If only. She saw Upchuck and Andrea together; they’re apparently still an item.”

"Ha! That’s so weird and unsettling I can’t help but find it kind of sweet. This worries me though; what are we going to talk about in Boston? Everyone we like to make fun of will still be here or in some other college."

“I wouldn’t worry about it. If there’s one thing I learned in moving from Highland to Lawndale, it’s that stupidity is infinite in its variety.”

“Amen to that. Oh! Hey, I gotta run."

“Okay," Daria said. "Do you want to get together Wednesday? Celebrate the special project they’re giving you?” She hoped she didn't sound too pleading, but she still felt uneasy about Jane's well-being. 

“Sounds like a plan, and I’ll try not to go into another sleepwalking frenzy. I really need to go, so adios!”

Jane hung up, and Daria put down the receiver. Her being able to joke about it was probably a good sign. Jane said that she’d called Trent, and that he’d be home a few days earlier than planned. Part of Daria wanted to call Trent herself, just to make extra sure, but decided that would be too intrusive. She had to trust Jane. 

In the lonely evening hours, however, the old worry crept back into her brain. 

_You’ve spent the better part of high school worrying about nothing, so what’s a few more months?_

Except it wasn’t nothing, not exactly. Mrs. Johanssen’s talk of her brother’s—and the other artists’—dreams couldn’t easily be relegated to coincidence. Then again, plenty of people suffered nightmares. Maybe Andy really did have a mental illness of some kind. Betty’s death, though tragic, was hardly uncommon.

_Jane won’t end up like that. She’s much too smart. If anything does happen, you’ll be nearby._

Telling it to herself until she believed it, Daria fell asleep. Arising late in the next morning, she awoke a sleeping Jane with another phone call and idled away the hours. The air that day, so hot and damp, seemed tense. Daria got the curious feeling of something momentous approaching her, the way she used to feel just before one of the big storms back in Highland.

It wasn’t until she read the notice tucked in the back of the newspaper, describing the suicide by pills of one Mrs. Johanssen, that her defenses buckled. 


	6. Chapter 6

Jane never heard the phone.

Worn and reeking, she staggered down the streets, two worlds mingling in her vision. A single thought pounded in her mind: to reach the Foundation’s office and begin her work. She walked past puddles of primordial slime, past rudimentary life that grew in pale fleshy clusters in the gates of ancient temples. Billions lived in the city, and they’d soon rise.

 _You’re onto something big_. _Picasso could have only dreamed of revolutionizing art this way_.

Her work hailed as the voice of a generation manifested on canvas, the freedom to do as she wished, following the purity of vision. Great things awaited, for her, Trent, Daria—she just needed to finish it.

Corpse pits yawned in the noxious air, contents green and stinking.

 _The stars are almost right_.

Only the weakness of flesh slowed her. Lungs struggled to process the nearly viscous air, the clammy pressure hindering even the slightest movement. Still she persisted, the glorious pattern clearer with each step.

She sometimes lost her lucidity. The living citadels shrank back into dead brick and mortar, the sun suddenly bright and the air clear. She’d sit down on the curb during such episodes, cradling the box that held her paints and brushes as she waited for them to pass.

Jane followed the vague memory of city streets, the path clearer to her when seen through the City. A kind of sixth sense, an overlay of the dream world, told her when to stop and when to move. _Even dreams can hurt_ , she reminded herself as she momentarily heard cars speeding past her. _They can hurt others too—you still need to a see a doctor. After what almost happened with Daria…_

Ancient sounds choked through the slime, ponderous forms shifting in lightless caverns.

Jane didn’t really see the drab two-story office hosting the Foundation for the Promotion of Local Talent, but she knew she’d arrived all the same. Where else would she find the scaled gatekeepers, their immortal heads crowned with pallid gold?

 _Almost there_.

Mountains tall, the great feelers unfurled, the first nerves twitching back to life.

*********

 _Pick up, pick up, pick up_!

“Hey." Trent answered.

“Trent! Has Jane called you?” 

“Daria? Uh, no, she hasn’t. What’s the matter?” His lackadaisical tone vanished.

“She didn’t call you earlier this week? What about just now?”

“Slow down! I haven’t gotten any calls from her. Is she okay?”

“Um, probably. I think. I don’t know. She started sleepwalking,” Daria said, trying to calm down even though every fiber of her being wanted to scream. “I went to your house on Saturday, and spent the night. While asleep, Jane sleepwalked out onto the roof.”

“On the roof?” For the first time in her life, Daria heard real panic in Trent‘s voice. 

“She didn’t fall. I went up—there was some, uh, confusion—but she was okay. The next morning, I told her to call you so that you could make plans to see a doctor. She never called you?”

“No, she didn’t. Where are you now?” 

“At my house. She’s not picking up, I called three times. I’ll go over and check on her. I should never have let her alone.”

“Good idea.” 

“There’s more. I think. I don’t know. How soon can you be back?”

“I’ll start heading home now. You can go ahead and check, stay with her until I get there. It’ll be okay.”

Daria didn’t even say goodbye, disconnecting and immediately grabbing the keys to the family SUV. She practically sprinted to the driver’s seat. Leaping inside, she gunned the engine and gave only a quick glance in the rearview mirror.

 _Careful, Daria; last time you drove like this you went off the road, and Jane had to escort you back after listening to your sob story_.

Daria alone in the diner, rain drumming on the roof and feeling the tears behind her eyes, Jane arriving in all that, for her.

 _I can’t let anything happen to her_.

********* 

Pat Mayhew guided Jane towards the sanctum.

“I envy you, Jane,” he said, his tongue freed from the encumbrance of human speech. “Yours is a unique honor.”

Jane followed, content to listen. Ancient chants shook the air and interlaced with his croaking voice. 

“When the stars are right He will rise, but there is no need to wait. I do not think you will ever truly see Him—that blessing belongs to others—but his herald should be reward enough. 

“Already we can call them up from R’lyeh, but their forms cannot long manifest so far from Him. Now, however, He has granted you the vision to change the geometries of this world—perfect for an artist, yes? The first herald shall rise here, bringing truth to the tottering cities of man. From this first, multitudes will follow, until the world is made ready.”

Her hands itched to start, the pattern glaring in her vision.

“The summoning ritual has already begun. Given what He is telling you, I do not imagine it will take you long to finish your part.” 

“I’ll be done before you know it,” she mumbled. Green walls disintegrated, dissolved, leaving only the twisting pattern gleaming before her.

“We have endured many trials. Since the raid, we have had to proceed with caution, stopping our work at even the first sign of interference. That we have invested so much in you is a show of our faith.” 

Seeing only the pattern, Jane felt the cold and scaly hand guide her down a flight of stairs. The vision dimmed enough to let her see her surroundings, a bare cellar ten feet on each side and lit by pale phosphorescent growths. A great circular stone interrupted the far wall's uneven masonry, and she knew that to be her canvas.

Her materials hung splayed and ruined from hooks. A small remnant of her shrank back from the sight, the bodies familiar as if from a dream. Rivulets of blood dripped from great rents and collected in copper bowls. 

“We have invested in the blood of others, and the blood of others can lead to our own. As you see, your competitors have been honored with participation in the final ritual. I trust you will not disappoint.”

“No, I wouldn’t want that.”

“You may start when ready.” 

Jane put her box on the ground, and opened it up. Her hands took the right tools on instinct. Understanding that there’d be no need for her usual palette, she dipped her finest brush into the gore.


	7. Chapter 7

Daria's hands rested on the steering wheel as she looked out to the office of the Foundation for the Promotion of Local Talent. Only the office’s size made it stand out from the rest of the industrial park. Two stories high and garbed in a stone façade, the structure gave far more than such an organization should need.

A crumpled business card on Jane‘s nightstand had led Daria to the place. She’d driven past it a dozen times in the past, never expecting to have reason to visit. Now it filled her vision, impossible to ignore.

Lightheaded and with her heart beating at twice normal speed, Daria stepped out of the SUV and into the soft summer darkness, the night sky blushed with fading light.

 _You know this is insane. Mrs. Johanssen killing herself doesn’t make her story true_.

Daria wondered if she’d already made some terrible mistake, that perhaps Jane never even went to the office. Perhaps she lay facedown in a ditch after another episode, her life ebbing away while Daria chased delusions.

Emergency services had explained it was too early to begin a search. She’d nearly screamed into the phone to get them moving, but instead stifled the words and resolved to do it herself.

Daria mentally tried to follow Quinn's example: act calm and confident, as if sure she'd be accepted. The world still seemed to fall out from beneath her as she marched up to the front door. She tried the handle and found it unlocked. 

 _This is either very good, or very bad_.

Pat Mayhew sat behind a small wooden desk, his almost monstrous form incongruous amidst the beige carpet and tan walls. Recognition flickered across his flabby visage as he turned his eyes up from a thick blue binder.

“Hello? Oh, I think I remember you: Jane‘s friend, right?”

“Uh, right,” Daria replied, her voice distant in her own ears. “Is she here? Jane said she had some kind of a project with your organization.”

“You just missed her, actually." 

“She already finished?”

“Jane hasn’t started yet; all we did was brainstorm, figure out how to get word out about the Foundation’s work. I can’t give you all the details, but it’s going to be great!”

“She is very talented. Is your office always open this late?”

Pat’s brow furrowed, though his face stayed friendly (or as friendly as he could manage).

“Summer’s always pretty busy for the Foundation, what with all the art students on break. Is there anything else I can help you with?” 

She paused, her mind racing for a reason to stay.

“Before I go, may I use your restroom?” The simplest excuses were usually the best.

Pat took a quick look at the clock on the wall. “Sure. It’s down the hall to your right.” 

“Thanks.”

Daria tried to keep her hands from shaking as she walked into the dim-lit corridor. A musty smell hung in the air past the main desk, a scent of cobwebs and mold. She opened the door to the ladies’ room and let it fall shut without entering. Thus committed to her lie, she crept on quiet feet to the door at the hall's end. Holding her breath, she pressed down on the handle until she heard the soft click, and pushed.

She slipped through to the darkness on the other side and closed the door behind her. An even worse odor assaulted her senses, one that recalled the rot of the half-eaten food hovering in Jane‘s empty house earlier that day.

A ghost of the afternoon's heat lingered in the room, bare save for some cardboard boxes piled up beneath a window. The room ran the width of the building. A single door interrupted the otherwise blank wall opposite of Daria. She noticed a sliver of floor beneath the boxes as her eyes adapted to the darkness.

Daria lifted up the nearest box. A straight line split the surface beneath. Pushing aside more boxes revealed a large, hinged square cut into the floor. A rusty handle was set into a depression on one side.

 _That’s not suspicious_.

An experimental pull produced the thud of a latch hitting the wood on the other side. Giving up, Daria turned her attention to the door in the wall. Sweat soaked her collar, the aftereffect of fear and noxious heat.

 _If Pat finds me sneaking around back here… well, there’s no way to know. It might be nothing_. 

As she neared, her ears picked up a low chorus of ragged voices emanating from the other side of the wall. Details lost themselves in the susurration but she still heard the pain in each voice, the wet sound of words torn from throats. 

The same kinds of sounds Jane had been making on the roof.

The recognition spurred Daria into action. Light flooded her vision the moment she opened the door, forcing her to shield her eyes with her right hand. Her vision adjusted to take in a great plume of pallid light that writhed like a living thing in the center of the room. Hunched silhouettes crouched before the illumination. 

Daria ducked behind a stack of cobwebbed pallets, hoping they'd keep her hidden. Tongues of cold light shimmered up from the cement floor of the warehouse’s center. She heard the chant more clearly: a terrestrial facsimile of something utterly alien. 

_Don’t look, just don’t look at it._

As her mind screamed in protest, a more logical remnant tried to formulate an explanation. The light probably came from an uncontrolled chemical reaction. Conceivably it might even be some sort of hallucination. She was having a psychotic episode.

_A padded room again, but this time for real. No one will expect anything from you, and you'll never have to say anything again. No one will judge what you do, not even you._

The light shone brighter as if to mock her rationalizations. Warbling hymns rose in pitch. Fragments of repeated sound caught in her ear: khlooloo, hrhl, ftach.

 _This can’t be real_ , she prayed. Bits of what she’d read online the other night surfaced in memory.

Daria’s entire body shook. The world blurred at the edges, the distant ceiling seeming to twist and droop, only to pull back up like some viscous strand.

_They’ll see you if you run! Stay down!_

A thin whimper escaped her lips, lost in the deafening groan. 

 _You need to stay calm. No matter how strange the situation, panic never helped anyone. Find Jane and leave._  

Daria faced the illumination, squinting as the full force of the light pierced her eyes. The silhouettes raised their arms as if in supplication. Their limbs took on monstrous forms, ridges and fins flaring up from the flesh. Theories and explanations fell to pieces the moment she concocted them, and she shut her weeping eyes to block out the light. 

Thick-voiced chants broke into her self-imposed darkness, the inhuman calls shaking the very world. 

_I can ignore this until it goes away. It’s just sound._

Still the light intensified. It illuminated the capillaries in her eyelids so the world turned red. Her heart beat faster and she clenched her teeth to stifle the scream threatening to explode from her mouth. 

The light vanished without warning. Alien words transformed into a cacophony of shrill and warbling cries. A foulness like she’d never known bore down upon her: a smell of opened veins and dried amniotic fluids, of intestinal flora and rotting fish. She gagged. Spasms wrenching her body as she tried get up from the floor, the stench crushing all of her senses.

She fell back down and saw the immense form that stood as tall as the ceiling, the tendrils cascading down its bulk of slick green flesh. Her world turned to ash.


	8. Chapter 8

New vistas unfolded before Jane‘s eyes. All of the hours spent studying the brushstrokes and color compositions of masters past had barely prepared her for such wonders. What she explored went far beyond painting. Something close to whole new medium was at her beck and call.

The set of traditional dimensions now seemed a limitation. Lines of blood wrapped around each other in elegant complexity: up and down, forward and backward, side to side. Every stroke added new qualities to the pattern, entire worlds flickering in the charnel fog.

 _This is incredible_.

No thought of rest crossed her mind, every ounce of her being craving to see more. She at last touched on the impossible, too devoted to even care about explanation, satisfied by the sheer experience.

 _I can’t wait to show this to Daria_.

*********

The blade’s edge hovered less than an inch in front of Daria's face. She remembered that such a sight should cause fear.

“You ought to consider yourself lucky,” Pat gloated.

“Just let me go. I won’t say anything,” Daria mumbled. “This never happened.”

Pat had intercepted her in the hall leading to the foyer, and pinned her against the wall with a single heavy arm. She offered no resistance. Her mind still reeled from the sight of what had been brought into the world.

“Whether you go or stay doesn’t matter. It’s already begun. You have no idea what you just saw, do you?”

Daria stared into space, her skin alive with an awful crawling sensation. She half-heartedly tried to focus on Pat, his malformed features blurring together.

“You know,” he whispered, salt-tinged breath in her ear, “many of my kind would have killed to take part in this moment. To see what we’re doing. And you have no idea. So damned typical of humans.”

The knife dropped from sight and Daria felt the sharp point against her neck. It pressed deeper with steady force until skin broke and thick blood trickled down from the wound. Pain registered as dull surprise, her body unable to make any reaction. The floor shook as primordial feet took their first steps into the physical world. Corruption's stench settled into her skin, into the walls and carpet.

“Just let me go.” No panic broke her voice, monotone and distant.

“Whatever I do pales in comparison to what the star spawn will wreak by its very presence. You have family here, girl? They’ll see the same thing you did, but they won’t have the option of looking away.”

“Excuse me? I want to go home.”

“You won’t have a home to go back to pretty soon.”

Shrill cries, not made by any human throat, echoed through the office. Pat scowled and shot a look down at the warehouse. He tossed Daria to the floor and ran into the shadows.

She lay there, conscious of the blood still welling out from her neck. _Probably just a surface wound_.

Daria struggled back up and walked quickly to the exit, thinking only of her room back home. She’d go to sleep and wake up the next morning. As simple as that.

*********

Jane‘s ambition increased as impossibility became reality at her hands. The original pattern, already astonishing, promised even greater heights. Someone had once told her that artists created the reality beyond the perception. She’d never thought much of it until that night.

The form was perfect. Variation existed in the color as well, the blood taking on different hues depending on when it had been applied, gaining the chromatic complexity of a Rothko. What it lacked, however, was contrast. Her pattern floated in a void, the stone on which she’d begun her work having expanded into an absence.

Jane did not look away from the pattern as she put down her first paintbrush. She continued focusing as she opened up her supply box.

 _Concentrate—you can’t screw this up_.

She wrenched her eyes away to check the available paints. Taking a vivid orange from the pack, she poured some of it onto her palette. That allowed for some more variation, but it needed a bit extra, something bright to balance the darkened blood. Jane added a dab of yellow and stirred it until it reached the shade she imagined.

Making sure the chosen colors lay thick on the brush, Jane took the vision given to her and made it her own.

*********

Daria sprinted past the parking lot and across the empty street, her mind nearly blank. She did not so much as try to regain balance when her feet slipped and she sprawled on the clipped grass of an office lawn.

Prone, she heard only her own breathing. Echoes of fear urged her to keep running, but her body protested. Daria crept forward until she reached a nearby oak, hoping for shelter in its thick roots.

 _I’ll just lie here for a while until I don’t have to think about it anymore_.

Not even the smell of the leaves and the grass overcame the sense of abomination deep in her flesh, tangible in the earth itself. On some level she knew there was, in the long run, no such thing as escape. Perhaps that didn’t matter so much.

 _As long as I don’t see it again_.

Movement in the Foundation’s parking lot caught her attention and she shrank back, as if trying to embed herself in the soil. Malformed figures ran inside to parked cars. The sight’s absurdity was lost on her exhausted mind.

Engines rumbled to life and headlights turned on as the cars fled the lot. Daria closed her eyes again, not wanting to see the walls break and the beast emerge.

*********

A tremor of artistic doubt troubled Jane. She did not second-guess the choice of color; rather, a less tangible problem marred the pattern, its complexity and beauty no longer as evident.

 _Probably just means you’re getting used to it_.

With renewed vigor she pursued the peculiar angles and dimensions known only to her, even as they started to flatten out and simplify. Where she once traced paint through a void, the wall's rough stone surface began intruding on the immaterial canvas, the solidity and mass flickering like an old filmstrip.

 _You can do this_.

Her work receded like the memory of a dream. Every passing moment mired her deeper in the mundane world of basic shapes and dimensions.

_Wait, stop! God, Buddha, whoever it is that let me see this, I’m not done yet!_

Jane redoubled her efforts, hands scraping against stone as she tried to access the strange space she’d so recently seen. Failure only inspired wilder efforts, tiny fists slamming against the stone.

_This isn’t fair! I was making it better, and you just take it away?_

Faced with the silent masonry, an impossible scrawl of blood and paint spattered across its surface, Jane kept trying to regain what she’d lost.

*********

Daria took a queasy lurch back into the waking world. The memories flooded her mind in an instant: mental snapshots of toxic green skin and deformed petitioners. She doubled over, dry-heaving. The very thought of that monstrosity broke everything she knew of reality. Every assumption of reason and order gone in an instant, laid bare as a vain and feeble attempt to understand the unknowable.

She couldn’t even dismiss it as some dream or hallucination either, her recollection too vivid for such attempts. The monster's glistening bulk seemed to spread out, cancer-like, from that single memory to touch on everything else.

 _I need to talk to someone, to Jane._  

That lone realization broke through the corruption, and her exhausted body turned cold with a new fear. She’d fled the moment she saw it. Finding Jane never even crossed her mind, buried under her all-consuming need to escape, to be free of it forever. Worse, she knew she’d run again if the situation ever repeated.

“Oh my God.” 

She’d only wanted a few last weeks with her best friend, a return to the lazy and interminable summer between sophomore and junior years. A chance to make up for the tumult of the last year, brought on by her greed and desperation.

 _You haven’t really changed. You’re the same as before_.

Looking back at the Foundation office, a few lights still on at the front, she noted that it stood whole and untouched. There was no way the monster could have escaped without tearing out a sizable chunk of the place. Pat and his compatriots had also fled. Only a trace of the once overpowering foulness remained, a fine layer of filth over the Earth.

 _It’s gone_.

Was it? She couldn’t be sure, but the signs seemed to indicate as much. Then again, who was to say what indicated anything?

 _Jane might still be there_. 

The possibility hovered in her mind. She checked the time on her watch—1:43. It had been hours since the event. Daria didn’t even want to speculate as to what such a creature might do. The mere sight of thing would cause a panic. The lack of screaming mobs and burning buildings offered hope. 

She approached the office with halting movements. Each step she took met with inner resistance, the instinct to run trying to keep her back.

 _It’s probably safe. If a Godzilla-sized monster was on the loose, you’d probably notice it_.

Forward motion became harder as she neared the door, the creature’s smell stronger in that place. The boots on her feet turned to weights.

 _Jane‘s probably okay. Maybe she just came and left. Maybe she’s had another sleepwalking episode and she needs help somewhere else, somewhere away from here_.

She looked down at the sidewalk as the stench worsened.

 _As long as I look down,_ she thought _, I won’t have to see it. It’ll just eat me or squash me, or whatever, and I won’t have to think about it anymore_.

Daria's groping hand found the handle and turned it. The door opened and she entered, feet pressing on the beige carpet. She already knew she couldn't bring herself to go back to the warehouse. The trap door, however, was in the office section.

Remembering that it was locked, Daria went behind the reception desk. Pat's open binder lay on top, displaying papers covered in elaborate diagrams and arcane letters. She searched until she stumbled across a set of three keys on a ring.

Daria grabbed the keys and braced herself. Still looking down, she felt her way down the hall and tried not to breathe in too deeply.

 _This whole place is contaminated now. No one will ever willingly go here again_ , she thought, without knowing precisely why.

She forced her head up once she reached the last room before the warehouse. A flick of the light switch revealed the trap door. Daria approached the entrance and got on her knees next to it, her heart pounding so hard she felt it in her skull.

 _You don’t know what’s down there_. 

Blocking all thoughts, she tried the keys. The second one fit, and the lock clicked with a single turn. Daria looked away as she pulled it open. A rank and bloody smell belched forth from the pit.

_Oh God, no. Please no._

“Jane!” she yelled, desperate for a response.

Daria thrust her head into the pit. Phosphorescent lights in the room below revealed Jane's familiar figure. She knelt at the end of the room, facing the wall.

“Can you hear me?”

“Daria?" Jane called back. "I had it. I really wanted to show you.” She sounded like a lost child.

“It’s okay,” Daria said, taking cautious steps into the basement. “Are you—“

She almost ran back up at the sight of the corpses suspended from the ceiling, their wounds open to the dank air. The dried blood was as thick as jam on the floor and walls.

“Jane, what happened?”

 _You didn’t do this, you didn’t do this_.

“It was right in front of me. And then it just went away. I don’t know what happened.” 

“What killed these people?” Daria asked, terrified of the answer.

“Huh? What are you talking about? It was right there!”

Jane finally turned to face Daria, her eyes trembling.

“We need to go," Daria said.

Taking Jane‘s wrist with one hand and picking up her box of paints with the other, Daria guided her friend up the stairs. Jane's protests soon fell into silence, and she followed in numb obedience. Once out of the basement, Daria closed the trap door and locked it again for good measure. A bedraggled Jane watched in confusion. 

Daria embraced her, heedless of the gore.


	9. Chapter 9

“It’s really cool that you’re doing this, Daria. Janie needs all the help she can get right now.”

“Mm.”

Trent drove the Tank past trees dying in bursts of autumn glory, the reds and yellows sharp against the blue sky. Anxiety prompted her to concentrate on the scenery, but nature's palette offered only a weak distraction from her fears. 

Daria got out of the Tank before Trent. She maintained a façade of outward calm as security waved them through the imposing iron doors and into the hospital's sterile hallways. A quick right took them to the waiting room where they sat in stiff vinyl seats. Daria gripped her knees, not completely sure that she didn’t belong in a cell herself.

A nurse walked Jane onto the waiting room’s linoleum floor. Daria stood up from her chair as Trent hugged his sister. Jane looked mostly the same, a bit pudgier from bad hospital food. She offered a wan smile.

“Hey,” Daria greeted.

“Well, aren’t you enthusiastic!”

“Sorry. Are you feeling okay?”

“Okay? I’m great! Do you have any idea how much artist’s cred you get by spending some time in an institution? Now I’m up there with Richard Dadd and Van Gogh.”

Daria smiled for what felt like the first time in years.

The nurse explained the rules regarding the medications to Jane and Trent, the two of them making noncommittal nods. With that, they signed her out and went back on the road home.

“So what was it like in there?” Daria asked, not really sure what approach to take.

“Disappointing. I was hoping for a lobotomy—electroshock at the very least. Instead they just gave me a lot of pills and greasy food." 

“Joking aside, did they treat you all right?”

“Yeah, I guess.” She lowered her voice: “I basically just told them what they wanted to hear.”

“I’m sorry, Jane.”

“Don’t be. There’s no way you could have explained it to them. Hell, I can’t even explain it to myself.”

Daria had kept talking to Jane in the days after that horrible night, trying to tie together some semblance of a narrative. Each attempt made things worse. Jane‘s scrambled memories had filtered into the waking world as she tried to recreate the pattern in her own blood. She talked of how Pat described the sacrifices of Darren Lansky and Joanna Porter, and feared she’d played some part.

“If they made me do something like that, Daria, I don’t think I’d remember,” she’d sobbed. “I might've done it, I just don't know!”

Daria started her studies at Raft soon after. Her parents had dismissed her weak protests as pre-college angst, and she was too confused to offer any real resistance when they drove her up to campus. She called Jane every day. Her outbursts at last became too much and the authorities took her to the hospital despite Trent's protests.

Safe with Jane in the back of the Tank, Daria could almost forget the whole nightmare.

“The important thing is that it’s over," Jane said. "We’re alive, more or less. Right, Daria?”

“Right.”

Daria drove back to Raft the next day, her hours on the road blurring together. She’d staggered her schedule to have Fridays free, giving her more time for the long trip to Lawndale.

At college, Daria let the days wash over her. Her courses posed little in the way of difficulty; she’d read pretty much everything on the curriculum back in high school. She spent the daylight hours in class or typing up routine essays, and the nights drifting off into her thoughts. The dorm’s jovial chaos flowed around her. 

“Daria, we’re going out. You wanna join us?” Rochelle, her roommate, once asked. 

“Thanks, but it’s been a long day. I think I’ll stay in.”

After three months of living there, she still couldn’t remember Rochelle’s last name.

Her parents sometimes wondered why their daughter’s customary A's had started to slip into B's. She first threw them off by talking of a busy social life, but that fiction proved impossible to maintain. Daria soon had to contend with worried calls about her mental well-being.

She knew she wasn’t fine, but no longer especially cared. College made it easy to be a ghost, and that was what she chose. 

Most days she kept the fear at the back of her mind. But some days she spent prone and shaking as the dread boiled up to consume every sense. Her breaths would turn quick and shallow as she relived the terror almost loosed on the world.

Daria coped by mentally recreating events from her high school days. She'd build them up piece by piece during the worst episodes until she found some measure of reassurance. For all of their dreariness, such memories came from a world not yet touched by what she'd seen, and were comforting for that fact alone.

She only really felt alive when she returned home, which generally translated to spending as much time with Jane as possible. Jane wore a mask of high spirits, belied only by the half-finished paintings in her room. Even so, they both found sanctuary in the same places, reliving better times in idle speculation of classmates long gone. 

Jane and Trent got by despite the inconstant Lane finances. His sister’s difficult state inspired a long-buried sense of responsibility in Trent and he ended up getting a job at Payday where he showed off surprising ability and dedication. It didn’t bring in much, but it was something.

“You’re okay with Mystik Spiral not being a thing any longer?” she said to Trent on a blustery afternoon.

“I'm still going to write music, and I have a lot of ideas. This is a good way to recharge my creativity while I help Jane get back on her feet. I think the Spiral was about done anyway.”

The rest of Lawndale changed little. The Foundation for the Promotion of Local Talent had closed its doors without fanfare early in September, and Pat’s Easel followed suit a week later. Daria initially feared that Pat might try to take revenge, but stopped caring as the months wore on.

 _If he wanted to get back at you, considering the tools at his disposal, he’d have done it by now_ , she reasoned.

Pat’s patience only demonstrated his confidence in eventual victory.

Trent encouraged Jane to resume her jogging routine. In February, she finally did. Jane described the first few attempts as agony over IM, but kept at it, regaining her old speed by inches. Daria joined her one weekend, able to keep up thanks only to her friend’s diminished capacity.

Daria dodged the festivities of spring break, predictably opting for a quiet week in the old neighborhood. She walked over to Jane‘s house early one morning as sheets of rain crashed down from steel-colored clouds. Jane welcomed her in, and Daria saw some of the old creative spark in her eyes.

“So it’s been a long time since I’ve painted anything. I’m thinking it’s time I did some new work. Not just start it, but finish it,” she said, handing Daria a cup of coffee.

“I agree.”

“It’s just that, whenever I start, all of that… I dunno, bad stuff starts coming back up and I have to stop. I still don’t know what Pat showed me. Part of me wants to create it again, but I’m scared to death of it at the same time.” 

Daria still only had a vague idea as to what Jane had experienced. 

“I wish I could be of more help.” 

“I think I can do it again—my stuff, that is, not Pat’s. Daria, would you mind looking over my shoulder when I work? It’s driving me crazy that I can’t make anything.”

“Sure. I’ve watched you work before.”

“Thanks.”

They went up to Jane‘s room, free of the smell of paint for the first time in Daria‘s memory. Jane soon set up her workplace, and paused as she stared at the blank canvas. Her brush hovered over the palette.

“I know what I want to paint. It’s just that I still see it in front of me,” she whispered, her voice quavering. 

Daria leaned in close, hearing the percussion of the rain hitting the roof.

“Well, you always knew how to ignore what you saw, right? When you painted scenes or people, you saw what was really there.”

“But what we saw—that's what’s really there.”

“Okay, but maybe only in a material sense.” Daria took a deep breath, hoping she didn’t sound too New Age-y. “You have something more." 

“Something more. Okay.”

Slowly, she dipped her brush in the green ink, swirling it around in the pigment before making a few exploratory strokes, like a child painting for the first time.

“This feels ridiculous,” she muttered. 

“You’re doing fine. If it looks too messy, just say you were going for Pollock’s style.” 

“There’s an idea."           

She worked with care, like a craftsman watching out for a basic but easy-to-make error. Daria sat on the bed and offered silent encouragement. A harsh landscape—jagged lines and bold colors—came to life on the canvas. The work was influenced by what Jane had seen, perhaps, but still distinct, still her own.

As the rain intensified, the artist returned to work.


End file.
